


Will You Still Love Me When I Am No Longer Young and Beautiful?

by sweetNsimple



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Crowley is Raphael, Domestic Fluff, God attends parenting classes, God did not plan this, M/M, Manipulative Gabriel, Married Life, Mutual Pining, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 16:09:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19254607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: He did not Fall so much as saunter vaguely downward.  It all began with questions he would later learn were too many.  Perhaps one had been too many.CAN I LOVE ANOTHER ANGEL?God had considered this, in those days when God had still talked to them.  LOVE YOUR BRETHREN EQUALLY, They had said in a booming voice that was of no Earthen language and not produced in any Earthen way as this was a time before the Universe.WHAT IF I LOVE ANOTHER ANGEL MORE THAN I LOVE YOU?YOU ARE PUSHING IT, RAPHAEL.NOW, DO NOT GET AN ATTITUDE.  WHAT IF I LOVE ANOTHER ANGEL MORE THAN I LOVE YOUR LITTLE MORTAL THINGIES?YOU, God said, CAN DEBATE ABOUT IT WITH YOUR SIBLINGS.  By no actual fault of Their own except by being a chronically absent parent, They accidentally caused the First Revolution.





	Will You Still Love Me When I Am No Longer Young and Beautiful?

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 한국어 available: [여전히 날 사랑할 거니](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20456309) by [The_One_With](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_One_With/pseuds/The_One_With)



He did not Fall so much as saunter vaguely downward.  It all began with questions he would later learn were too many.  Perhaps one had been too many.

CAN I LOVE ANOTHER ANGEL?

God had considered this, in those days when God had still talked to them.  **LOVE YOUR BRETHREN EQUALLY** , They had said in a booming voice that was of no Earthen language and not produced in any Earthen way as this was a time before the Universe.  This was slightly before the Universe, mere milliseconds before God would shape elements from nothing and send Their angels out to dispense it and construct it galaxies, star clusters, blackholes, and the like.

The angel left after receiving this answer.

Later, after the Universe _did_ begin and after dabbling in the creation of distant galaxies, the angel returned.  WHAT IF I LOVE ANOTHER ANGEL MORE THAN I LOVE YOU?

God had considered this, in those days when God was first forming Life to put on planets.  **YOU ARE PUSHING IT, RAPHAEL.**

Dually chastised, the angel known as Raphael wandered off to hang out with the wrong crowd, led by Raphael’s older sibling Samael.  Samael was also known as Lucifer.  Raphael preferred to call this sibling ‘Luci’.

It was only a little bit after that when the angel Raphael sauntered up to the Creator of All Life and Being – only a few minutes after God had begun working on Their Earth project – and said, NOW, DO NOT GET AN ATTITUDE.  WHAT IF I LOVE ANOTHER ANGEL MORE THAN I LOVE YOUR LITTLE MORTAL THINGIES?

God took what would be the world’s first deep breath of someone trying to hold onto their patience and released it slowly.  This, coincidentally, introduced carbon dioxide and exasperation to the entire Universe.  **YOU,** God said, **CAN DEBATE ABOUT IT WITH YOUR SIBLINGS.**   By no actual fault of Their own except by being a chronically absent parent, They accidentally caused the First Revolution which pitted brethren against brethren in the cosmos that would be later referred to as “Heaven”.  They would not realize this until a few days into the existence of human beings on Earth when a strangely familiar looking creature slithered into Eden and They were told by Metatron that it was a demon.

It was difficult to ask questions when One should have all the answers, so God posed it as a statement.  **AH, YES.  DEMONS.  NOT QUITE WHAT I HAD PLANNED.**

Metatron helpfully supplied, I WAS ALSO SURPRISED BY WHICH OF MY BRETHREN FELL FROM GRACE AND BECAME DEMONS.  THEY HAVE ALREADY SWORN TO FIGHT WITH US AGAIN.  WE HAVE NAMED THIS FUTURE APPOINTMENT “ARMAGEDDON”.  THEY WILL LOSE, OF COURSE.

 **I SEE** , said God, and as quietly as They could, **oh, fuck**.

God would secretly sit in on parenting classes once they were invented.

~::~

None of them were quite the same anymore.  Pride damaged, trust betrayed, and bodies battered and deformed – they had Fallen a great ways, not necessarily to the bowels of Earth so much as into the bottomless pit of the ever-expanding Universe.  It was easier for more intelligent lifeforms to think of the Universe as going left and right, from side to side.  Most forgot to consider that the Universe also went up and down.  Well, in this case, the Fallen angels had gone down a great, immeasurable distance.

They crawled back up out of pure spite.  Out of a sense of vicious retribution, they made Earth, God’s newest project, their playground.

Crawly came along, not out of a sense of loyalty, but out of a very well-hidden hope.

That hope bloomed into a near-painful joy when he heard that the angel Aziraphale was the guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden.  Apparently, some demons grumbled and grouched, he had a flaming sword, meant to smite them if they tried to sneak in and cause a ruckus.

Crawly bravely and selflessly offered to go peek.  Nothing to it.  Wow, wasn’t he such a great demon?  The other Fallen angels glared and spat and glowered and he slithered out of Hell with incredible cheer.

~::~

Eden was a jungle of pure pleasure and leisure.  There was no death, no pain, no loss, and no discomfort.  Mosquitos and lice hadn’t been invented yet and even the lions were healthy and peaceful vegetarians.  The weather was always perfect, and Adam and Eve buggered like they were trying to become one person again.

Crawly paid them very little attention. 

There.  _There_.  There was the angel.  Crawly curled up in a nearby tree and simply watched.  Drank in the sight of the angel he had loved and lost.  Would Aziraphale even remember him?  Would he _recognize_ him?  As God had made Their humans, They had also commanded that Their angels create a body that would make them inconspicuous on Earth.  In the last minutes before the Revolution had begun, Heaven had come to look like a bustling human city.  Crawly had had long red hair, when he had once been Raphael.  Attention-grabbing, or so he had planned it to be.  Tall enough to be noticed, or so he had thought.  He still had all that when he put on his human body as a demon, but his insides, the celestial part of him, was very different looking.  The Fall had burned him and mutilated him and ultimately made him a stranger to himself.  He wasn’t Raphael anymore. 

No, Crawly realized.  Aziraphale would not recognize him.  What would be the point if he did?  They were on opposite sides of the First War in the History of the Universe.  They were meant to smite one another – not be smitten. 

Though Crawly still very much was.  He recalled approaching the Principality several times before he had Fallen, in varying degrees of confidence.  Right there at the end, a mere blink of an eye before swords had been drawn and he had been hogtied and thrown overboard, he had been ready to ask the other angel, DO YOU THINK YOU COULD LOVE ME MORE THAN YOU WILL LOVE HUMANS, LIKE HOW I LOVE YOU?  He had been ready to ask but had gotten as far as DO YOU- and then the Revolution had begun.

He had no doubt that Aziraphale had fought in the Revolution, just as he himself had.  However, amid fighting and bloodshed and heartbreak, they had never crossed paths.  He held onto the foolish idea that Aziraphale had avoided him for the same reason he had avoided Aziraphale: He hadn’t wanted to fight him.

For four Earth days, Crawly followed the angel, lovesick and scaly.  On the dawn of the fifth, a second familiar and prissy dick with wings blocked Crawly’s view.

“And what name do you go by now, Demon?” Gabriel asked, smiling at the snake.  Something in his violet eyes said that he knew exactly who he was talking to and refused to acknowledge him as the angel he had once been. 

 _Crawly_ , he hissed.  _And you?_

“I did not Fall.  I remain the archangel Gabriel.”  He spread out his arms, proud of this.

_Are you sure?_

“There is no one else I would be.”

Crawly disputed that and the word he hissed was long and would never be translated into any Earthly language except for the one understood by palm trees.  Gabriel’s face went as dark as his glare.  “That was uncalled for.”

_Was it?_

“Asking questions got you in trouble once.  It will again.”

_Oh no, whatever shall I do?_

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

The snake derisively turned his head.

“Listen…  Crawly.”  He shuddered.  “I am here to tell you to leave.  The angel.  _Alone_.  I know you had twisted and, quite frankly, _disgusting_ emotions for him that caused you to Fall as you did.  You are Bad, Crawly.  All you do is Wrong, you must understand that.  And Aziraphale…  Well, he is still an angel, despite any misgivings I may have about him.  That makes him Good.  Bad has no place in Eden.”

 _Where Good is, Bad is_ , Crawly reasoned quite reasonably.  For the most part, he didn’t give a rat’s arse.  He just… didn’t want to go.

“Adam and Eve have no concept of Bad,” Gabriel informed him, speaking slowly as if Crawly didn’t have two brain cells to rub together.  “For that matter, they have no concept of Good.  Good and Bad require a struggle, and they live in an actual paradise.  The only way they would ever be able to tell the difference between Good and Bad, and therefore make it necessary for you to exist in any proximity to Aziraphale, is if they went against God’s command.  Luckily for us and unfortunately for you, they would never eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge.”

 _Oh, really?_   Crawly coughed delicately – an immensely adorable noise from a snake – and added with overwhelming disinterest, _Sounds stupid.  I don’t care_.

“And you shouldn’t,” Gabriel warned.  “It is important to us that they never be able to tell the difference between Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, and continue as they are.  Not knowing has allowed them to keep the peace with themselves, one another, and all the nature around them.  Having even a single bite from one of those apples would have dire consequences that would affect us for thousands of years.”

 _We don’t want that_.

“We most certainly do not.”  Gabriel pushed his long fall of grey hair over his shoulder.  “Therefore, it is time for you to leave, Crawly, and never come back.  You can never see him again.”

The archangel disappeared in a poof of cosmic energy.  Crawly, being a demon, chose not to leave.  No one was there to force him to.

Instead, he schemed.  Like _Hell_ , he would never see Aziraphale again.

~::~

“Well, that went down like a lead balloon,” would be the first thing he would say to the lost love of his miserable existence.  He wanted to come across as suave and flirty, but his angel looked discomforted as Adam and Eve wandered further and further away.  He expected disgust.  A fight.  He got a nervous angel who didn’t want to find Crawly funny or comforting but did anyway.  When it began to rain on Earth for the very first time, Aziraphale welcomed the demon under his wing as if they were not hereditary enemies at all.

Oh, also, apparently Aziraphale gave away his sword.  Some things never change.

~::~

After the Armageddon That Wasn’t, Crowley found himself standing before his quivering plants, deep in thought.  He had taken Aziraphale’s place on trial in Heaven and had spat Hellfire in Gabriel’s face for telling the angel to hurry up and die already.  Now he was having a sort of epiphany.

Crowley had fooled Hell and the world over into believing that he had seduced Eve into eating the apple as a point to the dark side.  In reality, it had been for the very self-serving reason of wanting humans to see the difference between Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, so that he could stay with his angel.  Gabriel was the one who had put the idea in his head.

If Gabriel hadn’t, if Adam and Even had stayed happily and ignorantly in the Garden of Eden till the end of time, there never would have been an opportunity for Armageddon.  There never would have been the Four Horsemen, having no nightmares of troubled humans to spring from.  Perhaps an Anti-Christ could have been snuck into Eden, but there was no concept of Evil for the Anti-Christ to mature into.  At the age of eleven, an Eden-raised son of the Devil would probably be guilelessly munching on fruit and thinking of nothing useful at all.

There were other demons who could have tricked Adam and Even into defying God, many who would have done it just for a chance at a second Revolution.  Yet it was Aziraphale who had been posted at the Eastern Gate and it was Crowley who had slithered in.

All planned, it was.  He could see that now.  Hadn’t he joked with Aziraphale that day, how funny it would be if it turned out he did the Right thing and the angel did the Wrong thing? 

Aziraphale had done nothing.  Nothing good, but also nothing wrong if one thought about it.  War having his flaming sword was neither here nor there as it didn’t do War much good in the end.  Crowley, in true demon fashion, had done something very, very, _very_ Wrong.

And, like a true coward, he planned never to tell Aziraphale.

~::~

“It is truly inspiring, what acts are inspired by the most tragic love stories,” Aziraphale told him.  They stood in the Taj Mahal and had just survived the tour.  “Shah Jahan truly loved her.”

“Must have liked her in the least,” Crowley grumbled.  “They had fourteen kids.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes and breathed deeply.  “It took twenty years to erect this mausoleum in Mumtaz Mahal’s honor.  What dedication.”

“It’s not like he built it himself.  It took – what did the guide say? – more than twenty thousand people?  And a _lot_ of elephants.  I doubt he put one tile in place.”

“What adoration.”

“If he had built it himself, _then_ I’d be impressed.”

“What loyalty to his wife.”

“He had three of them.”

“Will you just let me _have_ this?” Aziraphale sniped at him, pouting in that adorable, angry way of his.  He could be cool and collected at times, and, at others, a nervous pair of blue eyes with wings. 

Crowley was dedicated to him.  Crowley adored him.  Crowley was so bloody loyal to the angel that Aziraphale may as well slap a collar and leash on him.  Why wasn’t _Crowley_ getting any praise? 

“Do you want a mausoleum?”  He asked, only a little bit sarcastic.  “I’ll build one for you.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale cooed, touched and visibly discomforted by the idea of having a very large tomb built for himself.  “That won’t be necessary, my dear.  Nonetheless, I do appreciate the thought.”

“A garden, then,” Crowley decided.  “Biggest one in the Universe.”

“That is more your thing, darling.”

“You still like them, though.”

“I do,” Aziraphale admitted, smiling softly into the distant past when he once stood over the Garden of Eden.  “Very much so.  We can always go visit a botanical garden.  Perhaps even go to a rainforest.”  His happiness was soured by the reminder that the rainforests were being cut down at an alarming rate.  “Ah, well.  Life can’t be the Garden of Eden anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Crowley apologized against his will.  He swallowed thickly on any other sentiment that might dare to crawl up his throat and leap out into the air like a Damned fool.

Aziraphale frowned at a pillar.  “You know…  I never blamed you for that.  For the apple and Even.  I never thought to.  In all honesty, after this whole business with Armageddon, I have come to realize that Adam and Eve would have been forced to leave one way or another.”  He folded his hands over his navel.  There was something soft and hurt in his blue eyes that made Crowley lean over him protectively.  Aziraphale could very well fight for himself.  He could probably even take Crowley in a scuffle.  Aziraphale would rather not fight, however, and Crowley was fully aware of his passive aggressive method of getting the demon to do all the violence for him. 

Crowley adored that about him.  Even before he had Fallen, he had found that bastard streak of Aziraphale’s to be Damnably attractive.  Pun regretfully intended.

It was by habit that he squeezed in close, ready to defend.

“What is it, Angel?” he asked, one hand rising and then hovering over the small of Aziraphale’s back.  After only a short pause, he placed his palm there and felt the heat of the angel’s Heaven-issued body against his human flesh. 

“Do you know why I took that position at the Eastern Gate?” the angel asked unexpectedly, turning his head to look at him.  They stood practically nose to nose and blue eyes stared into the dark depths of sunglasses. 

“’Cause you were asked nicely to?  You were told what an honor it would be?  Someone convinced you it would be fun?”

“I thought I would see Raphael again.”

As a cosmic being, Crowley did not actually need to breathe.  He did so for appearance’s sake.  It was a very good thing that no one chose to look his way, as his human lungs stopped functioning and he simply stared.

Aziraphale’s eyes were damp.  “I – I never told you because I…  Well, I was never ready to talk about it.  I wasn’t _brave_ enough to, really.  It has been six thousand years and…  And I am just now letting myself believe that I will never see him again.  I am just now allowing myself to move on.  My dear, we have…  We have been so important to one another.  I know that I’ve insulted you and degraded our relationship, but I also know that my time here on Earth would have been nothing without you.”  He chuckled and it was a wet, pitiful sound.  “It would have also been interrupted several times due to being discorporated.  You have always taken such good care of me.  I do care for you.”  He rubbed his knuckles gently over the arch of Crowley’s cheekbone.  Gently, slowly, he turned his hand to cup the demon’s cheek.  “I do love you.  That is why I thought you should know.  I have hesitated because of this business with Heaven and Hell, but also because I wanted to believe that Raphael would come back for me and he can finally tell me what he was about to say before the Revolution began.  But that isn’t fair!  Not to you.  You are so much more than a, a placeholder or a, a substitute.  I love _you_.  I love you and I choose you.  If that bully walked in right now, I would still choose you.”

There were many things Crowley wanted to say.  Many things he should say.  Probably a thing he two he should be worried about.  One of them being that people seemed to think that this was a public conversation and that they were allowed to listen in on it, which they bloody well _weren’t_.

When Crowley allowed himself to breath again, what he said was, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, other hand grabbing Crowley’s and squeezing.  “I love you.  I said once that you were going too fast for me…  I’m all caught up now.”

“No, no…  Are you sure that, if Raphael was here right now, you’d say no to him?”

“Without hesitation,” the angel swore vehemently.  “Where was he when the Devil showed up and we had to give counsel to an eleven-year old Anti-Christ to save the future of the Universe and to stop a Revolution?  Nowhere!  But you were there.  You always show up to save the day for me.”

“Oh, Angel,” he whispered.  Again, Aziraphale could save his own day, but it was the action that mattered, Crowley supposed.  “I…  I know where Raphael is.”

Aziraphale shook his head.  “I don’t care.  I love you.”

“I love you too,” he hissed.  “I alwaysssss have.  Before I Fell.  After I Fell.  In the Garden.  I never ssssstopped.”

“Before…  Before you Fell?”

“I wassss about to tell you…”  Impatiently, sick of the onlookers and gawkers, he snapped his fingers.  Suddenly, everyone’s attention was elsewhere, as if he and the angel did not even exist and never had.  “I wassss about to asssk you…  If you could love me more than anyone elssse…  Asss much assss I love you.  The kind of sssselfish love that got me cassst out to begin with.”

Aziraphale was studying his face, skin cell by skin cell.  His plush lips moved, mouthing words and following ideas.  “Crowley,” he gasped, finally, after far too long.  “Are you saying…  Are you…   _Were_ you…?”

“What isss the purpose of that thing on your face?”  Crowley recited from memory, the first thing Raphael had ever said to the other angel.

Aziraphale sobbed.  “It’s a smile,” he answered, just like he had then.  “It shows that I am very happy.” 

“What isss ‘happy’?”

“Oh, _Crowley_ , how _dare_ you, how could you?”  Aziraphale butted their foreheads together, gentle and anguished.  “For six thousand years?  It’s been you this whole time?  Why did you never tell me?”

“I’m not Raphael anymore, Angel,” he admitted, forcibly regaining control of his hiss.  “I Fell.  I changed a lot and not for the better.  I’m just Crowley.  Just a wily old serpent that you like against your will.”

“I love you and I am so _furious_ with you!”  There was Righteous Fury in his voice, though it was hard to take seriously when he was smiling as wide as that.  “You’ve been with me this whole time.”

“Hold on, you loved me back then?  We barely spoke.”

“We barely spoke,” Aziraphale repeated in a not-very-polite tone of voice.  “Says the demon who claims to have loved me ‘back then’ as well.”

“You smiled because you were happy,” Crowley defended himself.  “You smiled at _me_.”

“Gabriel smiles all the time.”

“Nobody cares about Gabriel.”

“Gabriel does.”

“Gabriel can go suck on a rotting egg and jump down a blackhole.”

“You’ve loved me,” Aziraphale chased doggedly, “Since before all of Creation?”

“You love me, I don’t see what’s so special about it.”

Like the touch of butterfly wings, Aziraphale graced him with a kiss.  His lips were soft and dry and cool against Crowley’s own chapped and warm ones.  “I am still so very upset with you,” Aziraphale murmured.  “I am so very happy.  Shall we go home, my love?”

 _That_ made Crowley’s insides glow.  “If we must, Angel.”

“Oh,” said the angel.  “We must.  It would be best if there are no witnesses present when I discorporate you for making me think you abandoned me six thousand years ago.”

“Didn’t you just say it wouldn’t matter if Raphael showed up right now?  You’d still choose me, remember that?”

“I do still choose you.”  He looked around, as if to search for any prying eyes.  When there proved to be nothing, he leaned in close to Crowley’s ear and whispered in his quietest tone, “I love you more than anyone else.”

There was a moment where they both stopped breathing.  When neither angels nor God Themself took vengeance on the angel for such blasphemy, they relaxed into each other.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” Crowley admitted.  “Same, by the way.”

~::~

God looked like an older British woman in the middle of a pregnancy.  None of the other participating parents-to-be understood why Their voice rang in their heads like a sonic boom, or why they had the faint impression that her mouth never actually moved when she spoke.  What they did understand was that God – known to them as Margaret – needed their help more than anyone else. 

After all, Margaret was letting her children fight each other with fire and what sounded like acid, even though Margaret swore up and down that it was Holy Water. 

“No, Margaret,” said Sheen, attending with his husband and their surrogate.  “That is _not_ good.”

**IS IT NECESSARILY BAD?**

“It is _very_ bad,” said Sheen’s husband.  “You have to step in, lay down the rules.  You can’t expect your kids to raise each other to your standards if you’ve never set any.  They’re gonna do what they want to do and they’re gonna think that that’s what you want them to do because you never tell them otherwise.  Do you get what I’m saying?”

**THAT IS AN APT DESCRIPTION OF THE SITUATION I HAVE FOUND MYSELF IN.**

For a few minutes after that, the other parents discussed their issues and got their own answers.  After waiting an appropriate amount of time, They raised Their hand again.

The program coordinator took a deep breath and released carbon dioxide and exasperation into the room.  “Yes, Margaret?”

**TWO OF MY CHILDREN HAVE FALLEN DEEPLY IN LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER.  THEY LOVE EACH OTHER MORE THAN THEY LOVE ANYTHING OR ANYONE ELSE IN EXISTENCE, EVEN MYSELF AND HUMANITY.  I TOLD THEM TO LOVE THE HUMAN RACE ABOVE ALL ELSE AND I AM WONDERING IF I SHOULD PUNISH THEM.  YOU HAVE TOLD ME THAT MY CHILDREN’S ACTIONS SHOULD HAVE CONSEQUENCES WHEN THEY GO AGAINST MY WILL.**

There was a long, awkward silence.

“Like…  How do you mean, ‘love each other’?  You mean, in a brotherly way, right?”

**NOT AT ALL.  THEY BELIEVE THEY HAVE HIDDEN THEIR RECENT MARRIAGE FROM ME, BUT I WATCHED FROM ABOVE AS THEY SWORE FIDELITY TO ONE ANOTHER IN A HUMAN COURT ROOM.  THEY EXCHANGED RINGS AND KISSED.**

“Is… one of them adopted?”

**NO.**

“Oh my God,” said Linda, the program coordinator, who was not prepared for this.

**YES, I AM.**

“Quick question,” said Chloe, an expecting mother.  “Do you have any kids still at home with you?”  She whispered to her husband, “Be prepared to call CYS.”  Her husband dutifully nodded.

 **TRILLIONS, YES.  INCLUDING ALL OF HUMANITY AND EVERY OTHER FORM OF LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE.  YOU ARE ALL RELATED THROUGH ME.**   God surveyed the room.  **PERHAPS I SHOULD LEAVE NOW.**

No one said a word as Margaret got to Their feet and walked out.  This had happened numerous times in the past with numerous parenting classes.  Someday, God would find someone who could give Them good advice on what to do with one wily serpent and a Soft Angel.

~::~

Aziraphale woke up slowly, tangled in the long, twiggy limbs of his dearest love.  “Maybe there is something to this whole sleep thing,” he admitted.  Crowley stretched luxuriously against him and hummed.  “I like the going to sleep next to you and waking up beside you parts of it, anyway.”

“Good enough for me.”  Crowley yawned.  “What’s for breakfast today?”

“O-Oh.”  Aziraphale put on his largest, most uncertain blue eyes.  “I thought that… _you_ were making breakfast?”  He pouted.

“You’re a good cook,” Crowley argued, already getting up because there was only one way this could end.  “You can make breakfast.”

“I _can_ , but I am not as good a cook as you are, my dear.  You are truly talented in the kitchen.  I can’t be expected to go in there and embarrass myself in front of you.”

Aziraphale was a lying liar who lied and who had taught Crowley how to cook, one very simple dish at a time.  Crowley was already going in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Oh, sure.  That’s what you’re worried about, that your cooking will be subpar compared to mine.”

“It _will_ be.”

“It won’t.”

“But it _will_.”

Crowley was yelling to be heard from the stove, pulling out a skillet and measuring cups.  “I’m just saying, Angel, you’ve been at this cooking thing a lot longer than I have.  I’m sure you’re better at this than me.” 

“Perish the thought!  How could I ever aspire to be as good as you with a spatula and raw ingredients?”

Crowley was in the midst of making pancakes, bacon, and sunny-side-up eggs.  “That right?”

“I swear it to be true.”

Arms came around his waist and held him.  Aziraphale tucked his face between the demon’s shoulder blades and molded his front to Crowley’s back.  “I love you,” the angel murmured.  “Very much so.”

“That’s gross, Angel,” Crowley teased.  “You have a crush on me?”

“We’re _married_ , my dear.  I have a never-ending crush on you.”

Unexpectedly, the wily old serpent got choked up.  “Fine, sure, whatever.”

There was peace and quiet.

“Can we have chocolate chips and strawberries in the pancakes, my dear?”

“Would _you_ like to make these, Angel?”

“No, no, no…  They look delicious.”

“That’s what I _thought_.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> There is this theory flying about (hah) that Crowley was Raphael before the Fall. I really like this idea. Also, Armageddon never would have happened if Eve had not been tempted to eat the bloody apple.


End file.
